How often do you do laundry? - Page 2

[Amys1st]

Family of 3 Me, DH, and DD (age 3)

Summertime-
Mondays- Do a load of whites, 2 loads of darks (sorted by hang dry and what I would automatically put in dryer), and sometimes dh's pants for work.
Thursdays- DH's pants for work if I did not do on Mon and a load of darks since by now it needs to be done.
We can hang stuff on our line so I do line dry stuff anyday I have a large enough load to do it. Like yesterday I did a load even though it was wed since its a great day to let the breeze dry my stuff.

I line dry- sheets, shirts, bathing suits, cloth napkins

Rest of the year:
Mondays- Do a load of whites, 2 loads of darks sorted by linens and towels and then clothing, and sometimes another load of dh's pants for work.
Thursdays- DH's pants for work if I did not do on Mon and a load of darks since by now it needs to be done.

When dd was born we did a load of her stuff almost everyday. But now her stuff is in with ours.

So 5-6 loads a week. Before DD was born, it was about 4-5 loads a week. I would do them on Saturdays and also Thursday nights.

[sophmama]

A load a day or so - small washer. I hate doing laundry. There's no where to store a laundry basket in this place hardly so I have to put dirty stuff in the washer and wash when full. No I don't have problems with colors mixing since I wash with cold. I do dipes seperately (hot of course).

eta: 3 of us here

[CountryMom2e]

I do laundry nearly every day, for a family of 3. DH works at home and really goes through his clothes. Mine can rarely be reworn since someone with guppy hands often is grabbing at them (who could that be?), and that someone with guppy hands never rewears an outfit unless he spent most of the day in a swim suit.

I also do diaps every 3 days. I alternate laundry - whites and light colors one day, darks the next. Mixing in towels and sheets when loads are lighter.

[CountryMom2e]

Oh one caveat - I only do the amount of laundry that I can completely *process* in one day - washed, dried, folded & put away. We have one laundry basket and it *follows* the laundry through the process.

[tboroson]

2 adults, 2 kids, 3 cats who like to piss in laundry baskets...

When I'm on the ball, I do one load a day. Occasionally that gets me ahead and I can skip a day. I do approximately:
2-3 loads whites (including diapers)
1-2 load darks
1 load sheets and towels
1 load blankets (the blankets off our sofas get covered in cat hair quickly, so they need washing about weekly. Also, bed blankets.)

[akmbloom]

we have a small "apartment sized" washer, and not many clothes. Like my husband only has 4 wearable pairs of pants, and right now I have about 5 outfits that fit (postpartum) for work. 2 of us, plus a baby. Plus two cats, one of whom is old and gets sick a lot and lays on blankets in the warm spots around the apartment. Plus cloth diapers. So I do one load a day, usually, and some days I wash the CDs in addition to the regular load. My DH is not real good about re-wearing things that aren't necessarily "dirty" yet although I grew up doing that. Plus my mom is the in-home babysitter so occasionally she brings things to wash too!

[stretchmark]

I wish I could explain all that dang laundry.

2 adults and 2 kids here (1 is 16mos. the other almost 4)

I do laundry EVERY DAY just so I can stay on top of things and not have to spend an entire day doing nothing else. It just fits better into my day to do 2-3 loads a day than to wait and do it all in the same day.

DH is a contractor and is always getting super dirty. DS is always getting dirty.

Then there is the cloth dipes too that I seem to wash 2-3 times a week because we don't have very many.

I'm not doing full-loads every time but do the laundry based out of necessity. DH has a ton of clothes for work but the rest of us don't have but maybe a weeks worth of clothes so I have to wash often.

Also there are towels and sheets and rugs and kitchen towels.

I live in NM where the dirt just seems to find its way into the house no matter what so there is lots of rug washing and kitchen towel using.

perhaps I will try not doing any until Sunday or something and see if I can do it all the same day.

[thistle]

I am amazed at all the laundry. I guess we just don't get that dirty. If dd is going to do a messy project (painting or play dough) I strip her down to undies first. I do towels and linens once a week, all in one load on hot. We do try to reuse towels thoughout the week so it is maybe 2 towels per person, plus every dishtowel in the house and a couple of hand towels & washcloths, queen sheets and twin sheets if dd has slept in her bed more than once that week- LOL. All that fits in one load in my washer.

I wash everything in one day (usually Sunday) then watch tv or a movie while I fold everything that evening. If I am watching tv I will put away during commercials.

[kavamamakava]

Your washer must be way bigger than mine.

[Jachut]

I've got 3 kids and one husband and I do at least 2 loads of laundry a day. There's always a load of towels and bathmats - I have a thing about manky wet towels, I wash them after every use, and the kids always flood the bathroom when they shower so the towels get used to mop up a lake. so five towels and a bathmat plus assorted socks and underwear go in the first load. There's four beds in the house to change and keep clean so there's three loads of bedlinen per week (I can usually fit 2 single beds in one load), plus there's 3 loads of diapers and then there's usually 2 loads of whites a week and 3 or 4 loads of coloureds, plus two loads of handwashing/delicates/woolens. So what's that about 18+ loads of washing a week. The washer's always full-ish - not overloaded. I need to use the clothes line, an indoor airer AND the dryer to get through it.

I only iron Doug's business shirts and the odd thing that needs it, as a general rule it comes out of the dryer/off the line and away onto hangers right away.

On top of that I run the dishwasher (full) at least twice per day, often it's 3 times depending on what I cook for dinner.

So you dont have to have a "big" family to do that much laundry! It's not like we're extravagent with it or anything. If I miss a day there's towering laundry baskets!

[Amys1st]

Originally Posted by thistle

I am amazed at all the laundry. I guess we just don't get that dirty. If dd is going to do a messy project (painting or play dough) I strip her down to undies first. I do towels and linens once a week, all in one load on hot. We do try to reuse towels thoughout the week so it is maybe 2 towels per person, plus every dishtowel in the house and a couple of hand towels & washcloths, queen sheets and twin sheets if dd has slept in her bed more than once that week- LOL. All that fits in one load in my washer.

I wash everything in one day (usually Sunday) then watch tv or a movie while I fold everything that evening. If I am watching tv I will put away during commercials.

This could also be why we do not have as much laundry as everyone else. We also reuse towels. Also we use rags and cloths for everything and still not much more laundry

[falcon]

We (2 adults, 1 kid) do 7-9 loads a week in the big laundromat washers... a few weeks ago we ran into friends of ours (a couple w/o kids) at the laundromat and they were so completely at the amount of laundry we do every week. (They only do 3-4 loads every other week! Must be nice!)

It's good to know that at least we are in the same boat as many of the other families with kids

[PancakeGoddess]

I love this thread. I love laundry.

I wish we could do the one-person-per-day method, but we'd have to have more clothing in order for each person to last that long.

I forget who was the PP (fire in july??) who has 2 loads a week for training pants - I got totally distracted by that, thinking, it must be too soon for pl! :LOL

I do just about one load a day.
-colorsx2
-whitesx2
-towels
-dipes x 2

The only part I really hate is sorting into drawers. I shouldn't complain - my older boys and dp do their own, but I just can't stand it.

[jessicaSAR]

I average about 1 load a day for 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs. My kids love to play outside, and they are notoriously dirty (never met a mud puddle they didn't like). Dh and I are runners/bikers so that adds dirty, sweaty clothes every day. We don't dry clean anything, so dh's work clothes are all washed at home. We use all cloth products so we have cloth wipes, napkins, towels, mama pads etc and that is a couple loads a week. Our youngest is cloth diapered so that is 2-3 loads per week. I don't change sheets nearly as often as I should, but I do have to wash the comforters every couple of weeks because the dogs are always on them. In the summer I wash the dogs' bedding regularly to prevent fleas. It seems excessive, but it all just adds up.

[dziejen]

For our family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kiddos) I wash about 5 or 6 loads a week spread out through the week (usually one a day so I am not overwhelmed hanging it all on the clothesline and folding). We tend to have less laundry in the summer since we reuse our beach/pool towels and wear less clothes but I am planning on cloth diapering our new little one so I am sure we will add a few loads come November

[Babytime]

We have a large front-loader that I love, but I still do tons of laundry. It works out to at least one load a day, between diapers and clothing and bedding. There's always something else to wash too, like jackets at the end of a season that need to be washed and put away or dress up clothes and art smocks that need to be "freshened" every so often.

[eden/averymum]

2 adults, 2 babies in cloth diapers, ds and step daughter every other weekend.

We have an apartment sized washer, so really only does half a typical load. I do a load most days and then there are two loads of diapers every 2.5 days.

[oldcrunchymom]

Originally Posted by Amys1st

This could also be why we do not have as much laundry as everyone else. We also reuse towels. Also we use rags and cloths for everything and still not much more laundry

Same here. I can't imagine using a whole new bath towel for every person every day. Yikes. That WOULD add up. And we re-wear clothes like jeans and sweatshirts and cardigans if they aren't dirty. Also, I don't usually wash the sheets/quilts unless they seem soiled or smelly or whatever.

[RoadBuddy]

2 adults, no kids here yet.

DH and I each do our own laundry. Just got in the habit, and it works for me! We both work full time, so we split all chores, and I don't want him touching my laundry for fear he'd ruin stuff :LOL

He does one load of all his stuff each week. Somehow he mixes darks and whites, work and casual and it comes out OK. Confuses the heck out of me, but except for one unfortunate incident where he shrunk new $60 pants, it works...

I do one load of my dark/color clothes per week and one load of sheets/towels. We reuse towels, so there are maybe 4 towels, a bath mat, two pillowcases, a queen sheet, and all the dishtowels.

Every other week or every 3 weeks I wash my whites (I don't wear white often at all, so whites sit in the bottom of the hamper till I feel like washing them). The queen comforter is a load on its own, and is done every month or so.

So we're looking at maybe 4 loads per week.

Once we're dealing with cloth diapers, then messy kids it will much higher!

[celestialdreamer]

I'm trying to figure out how we are ending up with so much laundry with only a family of 3 (plus 1 puppy and 3 long haired cats). If I wanted to keep up with laundry I'd have to do 1-2 loads a day at least.

*Lights 3x week (includes cloth napkins, etc)
*Darks 3x week
*Dog/cat blankets & beds 1x week
*Diapers every 2 or 3 days (usually every 2 in the summer- heat makes them stink!)
*Delicates once a month in the washer, maybe? I handwash bras, etc usually
*Sheets (king size) and the duvet cover 1x week
*Towels sometimes in with other stuff, one load weekly if I do it all separately, we change the bath towels twice weekly, kitchen towels/washcloth daily, about 15 cleaning rags included also.
*Usually pick one other item to wash a week like a rug, throw pillows, crib bedding (the cat sleeps in there, not the baby so it gets rather furry) to keep up with the 'extras'

Our washer is a large front loader, which does use less soap and water, but takes forever and is in the basement. Since its not in a convienent location I am always behind! Holy crap! So we are washing like 11-13 loads a week! YIKES! Of course I have a messy toddler, fuzzy pets, and a DH that gets really dirty at work...if only I was one of those people who actually LIKES laundry!